This morning, we got up at 8am, and quickly showered and dressed to get ready for our cooking class with Chef Carmen in Sorrento. Sorrento, a resort town, is an hour away on the train from Naples. We had to take the Naples Metro from our Museo stop towards Garibaldi in the city center. We then navigated to the Circumvesuvia line, which is literally a train to go to from Naples to places around Mt. Vesuvius. We took the Circumvesuvia from Naples to Sorrento, just barely making it and avoiding a 30-minute wait for the next one. The highlight of the train was seeing a family play music aboard then train then solicit for donations. Once in Sorrento, it was only about a 5 minute walk to La Cucina del Gusto, for our cooking class with Chef Carmen.
Upon walking in, we could immediately tell that this would be a great experience. Our cooking class and lesson took place on a large marble tabletop, which was preset for the six participants in the course. We started off with half a potato in front of us, which would be the base of the gnocchi, which was our first course. As we began, Carmen began to teach her techniques, interspersed with some Italian so we could learn a little of the language along with our cooking. Carmen prefers petite Gnocchi, so we tried to pattern her. She had some interesting techniques to note: like placing all of the scraps and garbage in a glass bowl so you aren't constantly having to throw things out and using a scraper tool to clean the marble surface we were cooking on.
Next we made the ravioli, which was a little more of a delicate dish. Once we had successful created a thin, circular ravioli dough, we placed small balls of a cheese mixture on half of the dough and then folded the blank half over the cheese ball half so that it was all covered. Once covered, we used a ravioli press to get the ravioli pieces out of the dough.
My favorite thing to make was the calamari. We received whole, fresh squid and Carmen taught us how to pull the skin away from the meat and the head away from the body --carefully though, as to not have the ink sac burst from the eye!
After all of our cooking prep was done, we munched on some salami, cheese,and olives while waiting for Carmen to take all of our food prep and turn it into lunch. Lunch was unbelievably good. We started off with the calamari in tomato sauce, then the gnocchi in a tomato sauce, and the ravioli in a butter base. Meal was served with water and wine. We both agreed that this was our best meal of the trip thus far. At the end, we paid Carmen and then bought her cookbook, which she signed for us.
We loved this cooking class! Elisha wants to make Gnocchi at home and was even looking at a potato ricer on Amazon to make Gnocchi with on the train home!
After the class, we wondered around Sorrento for a little, bought a few souvenirs and
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